“Mr. Benson is here with the entire authority of the war department,” he said smoothly. “There was a conference in Washington when you released that newspaper statement, and it was finally decided to send him because you, as well as everyone else acquainted with him, must know he is to be trusted completely.”
“I am sure of that, of course,” said Cranlowe, with weary politeness. He had looked over Benson’s credentials.
“I came to see you,” said Benson, “on your new war invention, of course. Your government wants to buy it.”
Cranlowe’s lips were tightening, as they did with every mention of the new weapon. He was shaking his head even before Benson was through speaking.
“My invention is not for sale, even to my own government,” he said. “I am as patriotic as anyone, I think, but my motive is a larger one than patriotism. I mean to stop all wars—”
“Yes, I know,” Benson said. “It is a laudable motive. But a situation has arisen, known only to our Secret Service, which makes patriotism come first. There is an urgent reason why you must sell it to the United States at once.”
“And that?” said Cranlowe skeptically, lips tighter and more stubborn than ever.
“The United States, itself,” said Benson, “is about to be invaded.”
There was silence in the library, broken by a well-rehearsed gasp from Jenner.
“Benson! You didn’t tell me that.”
“I am telling you, now,” said Benson. “And Cranlowe.”
“I can’t believe it,” said Cranlowe, paling. “It is impossible! Who would invade us — and how?”
“We are to be invaded from Guatemala. Air bases have been secretly constructed by the dozen, down there. Thousands of planes have been assembled, waiting only for the signal.”
Cranlowe stared hard at Benson with his deep-set, tired eyes.
“I’m sorry. I simply can’t believe such a thing. An endeavor like that would be instantly known. You can’t hide all knowledge of dozens of air bases and thousands of planes.”
“As I have said, our Secret Service knows of it.”
“More than that would know,” insisted Cranlowe. “Such a large maneuver would become public property before it could be completed. Indeed, it would never be allowed to be completed. Our navy would see to that.”
“It is our policy now not to send armed forces to the Latin American countries—” began Jenner.
“Policy be hanged,” said Cranlowe. “No policy would hold in the face of such a threat.”
“You mean — you think Mr. Benson is lying?” exclaimed Jenner in an outraged tone.
“I mean,” said Cranlowe, “that I think even my own government might connive a little to get such a weapon as I possess — with no thought of using it save in self-defense, I am sure. Nevertheless, they may want it badly enough to stretch the truth a little.”
“You’re a very suspicious man, Cranlowe,” said Jenner with a sigh.
“You would be too, Jenner, in my shoes.”
“Am I to go back to Washington and say that you refuse to co-operate in the face of such a grave emergency?” asked Benson.
Cranlowe looked troubled, and desperate.
“It sounds so fantastic,” he said. “Invasion from Guatemala! If I thought it was really threatening, I’d send you back with the formula tonight, of course. But — I simply can’t accept that on your bare word. With all your prestige and reputation, Mr. Benson, I simply can’t.”
Cranlowe was an intelligent man. He was silent a moment, then said.
“We can do it this way. You go back to Washington to tell our President how I feel. Ask him to get in touch with me in person. If he assures me that what you have said is the truth, I’ll turn my formula over.”
There was a little pause after that, and on Jenner’s face, a hardening, frustrated look. It was going to take something more than logic to answer this all-too-logical thrust!
“Suppose we are invaded in the meantime?” said Benson. “Cities bombed, thousands killed—”
But Cranlowe was shaking his head. No argument could shake the rocklike will of this man with the big-domed skull and deep-set eyes.
“That’s enough,” said Jenner. “Cranlowe is too stubborn and stupid to—”
From out of the night came a weird baying. On the lawn inside the iron fence, the big dogs were howling as if at the moon.
Or as if sensing death in the air.
“The floodlights!” cried Cranlowe, staring out the study window. “They’re out! What on earth—”
CHAPTER XVI
Berserk Guards
Out there, in the darkness by the fence, Kopell and his nine men crouched, dim shadows near the gate. Kopell left the others and went up to the right-hand gate post. He stood there, hidden by it from anyone on the inside.
Beyond the gangsters’ sight, Mac and Josh and Smitty were mere dim shadows in the night. Smitty had a pair of binoculars in his hamlike hands. They had special lenses, worked out mathematically by The Avenger. The lenses were ground to an optical formula, as yet known to no others, which gathered a maximum amount of light where it would seem there was no light to be gathered.
With these exceptional night glasses in his hands Smitty could dimly see the gang leader at the gate, through Josh and Mac couldn’t see him at all.
Smitty saw Kopell take something out of his pocket, and stand with it in his grasp. He couldn’t, of course, see what it was. And if he had seen the black disk Kopell held, he still would not have known what it signified.
From the gate came the voices of two men.
“Stick on this gate hard, Pete. There’s something screwy about those lights burning out the fuse. There’s never been any trouble like that before.”
“You bet,” said the other man. “And you and the rest better walk a fast beat around the fence. Wait. Is the charged wire on top all right?”
There was a short pause, then a blue flash from the top of the fence. The man had thrown something up there to see if the current was dead, and had found it was not.
“O.K.,” said Pete. “I guess—”
That was all that was said. At least by Pete. His voice trailed off uncertainly, and he stood like a statue.
And two dogs near him suddenly began to howl in a weird death bay.
“Pete!” Smitty heard the other man say, voice perplexed. “What’s eatin’ you, man? Pete! Pete—”
There was a roar like that of a small cannon. A roar that was hideously muffled, as a sawed-off shotgun exploded its terrible charge into a man’s middle at short range.
And now Pete was alone at the gate.
Smitty, still stunned by the astounding knowledge that one of Cranlowe’s guards had suddenly whirled and shot another in cold blood, heard Kopell’s voice. He just barely made out the words:
“Go after the rest, pal. And the dogs. Don’t forget the dogs!”
At the same time, Smitty saw Kopell’s hand slide inside the gate bars, and then saw the gate begin to open outward.
The treacherous guard had opened the gate to the enemy. And yet — Smitty had a wild and baseless hunch that something more than treachery was afoot here.
Pete screamed. It was a high, unearthly wail, a lunatic outcry. And there was another shot, and again it was hideously muffled.
There were yells all over the Cranlowe grounds, now.
“Get Pete! Get him! He’s gone nuts!”
Wild shouts and the excited baying of the dogs. Then another shot, and one of the deeper bell-notes of a dog abruptly ceased as a shotgun blew its head off.
“He’s over there, in the corner. For Heaven’s sake, get him!”
Kopell had beckoned silently. His men came up to him. One by one they slid into the grounds, under cover of the hell that had broken loose with the berserk charges of a madman with a shotgun in his hands. They started toward the house.